


Divine Intervention

by SapphireSassenach



Category: Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 00:48:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6099364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SapphireSassenach/pseuds/SapphireSassenach
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Claire doesn't go back to her own time after she touches the stones at the end of DIA, but instead finds herself in the same time, waiting at Lallybroch for news of if her husband is alive or dead.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Divine Intervention

It had been two weeks since my heart was torn out of my chest. Two weeks since that fateful moment at the stones. On the eve of death and desperation, my heart had tried to be noble. My love tried to sacrifice, to send me away to ensure the safety of his wife and child unborn. To ensure he would live on in some form and all wouldn’t be completely lost to the darkness of war. And by god, I had listened to him. But I now found myself at Lallybroch, instead of the future where I came from three years before.

The stones hadn’t worked. They had swallowed me up and spit me back out. When I woke from the horrid noises of the lost, from the trapped souls trying to steal my own, I expected to be back in my own time, in the forties. But I found myself in the same war-torn world I had tried to flee to ensure the safety of the baby in my belly. 

But Jamie was gone. Gone to face his death on that dreadful field of Culloden. I had sobbed harder than I ever have upon not finding him on the hill, harder than even when I was a little girl finding out I would never see my parents again. I clutched the stones of the ruined cottage where we had spent our last night together, trying so desperately to tear a piece of each other off to patch onto our weeping hearts in order to keep them from shattering entirely.

If it had only been me, I would have laid down on the ground where we last loved one another and slowly drifted off to the darkness of death, where I hoped I could see my heart once more.

But it wasn’t only me. I carried a piece of Jamie inside me, the last piece of him always, and I needed to keep it safe. He had trusted me.

So, I summed up the courage and somehow found myself back at the farmhouse that I had grown so found of. But now it was a constant reminder of what had been lost.

Jenny and Ian watched me with pitiful eyes, while I gazed at the road everyday with a sad broken piece of hope I was clutching onto. I knew he was mostly likely dead and I knew that they wouldn’t bring his body home, that he would be laid to rest on that retched moor.

But to not watch, to not look at all, was all too final. It would be throwing myself off a cliff without the knowledge if there would be water to break the fall or if I would break into a million pieces of heartache, scattered until I disappeared. That would mean I would have to accept that my other half was gone and the constant gapping wound in my heart would forever bleed with want for its missing piece.

The days went by in a blur. I ate little and slept little. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep on the bed we had shared so many nights together, instead sleeping on the lumpy chair by the hearth each night. Jenny, god bless her, tried to get me to play with the little ones and to help with the gardens, but I didn’t have the state of mind to do anything but stare at that blasted, empty road.

“Claire!”

I tore my gaze from the desolate, lonely road to see Jenny clutching a limp Mrs. Crook.

I ran over immediately to the kitchen and laid my hand on her throat, looking for a pulse. It was quite fast but beat strong enough against my fingers.

“Only a faint most likely,” I said, feeling her forehead for a fever.

“Let’s get her upstairs where she can rest for a bit.”

Jenny and I carried her weak form up to the servant’s room, laying her down on the small bed as her eyes fluttered with awareness once more.

“I’ll tend to her Jenny, don’t worry,” I said with a weak smile, reaching for a rag and wetting it in the basin to wipe the elder woman’s brow. Jenny looked me over and nodded slightly, then walked out the door.

Perhaps, I could still be of use here. Until the baby came, I could travel from house to house, tending to the sick or simply giving them advice for staying healthy. It would allow me to escape the memories that haunted me every minute I stayed in the main house, every item reminding me somehow of my lost husband.

I was still wiping Mrs. Crook’s forehead when I heard the wheels of a cart faintly from the distance, the wind carrying the sounds through the open window. I shook my head, damning myself for even thinking it could be any good news. My palms started to sweat and my heart thumped like jack rabbit in my chest.

It could be someone bringing his body back, or worse just informing us the news of his death and that he was buried on the dreadful field. Tears ran silently down my face as I thought of him being dragged through the blood-stained grass by a British solider that may have well been the one to stop his heart.

I pressed my hands hard against my head, trying desperately to stop thinking, to stop the images from flooding my mind. But I couldn’t stop them, pictures flashed without permission.

Jamie laying lifeless on the field, surrounded by his fellow slain country men. Jamie falling down after being shot. Jamie cold and pale.

Sobs tore through my chest, as I pressed even harder against my temples in despair. At least he would have been buried with his clan, with the Frasers. I felt the pressure of a hand lightly on mine and looked up to the sympathetic gaze of Mrs. Crook.

“Claire! Get out here!”

I heard Jenny yell from downstairs and my feet responded before my mind did, flying down the stairs at the tone of her voice. Not of despair, not yet. I raced through the house and out to the front door where Jenny stood, gazing anxiously at the cart coming down the road, manned by two red coats and what it appeared to be a person in the back.

Jenny reached out and clutched my hand hard. I gripped it just as firm back, both of us drawing strength for whatever news may come of the man that we both loved.

The cart slowly pulled into the arch of the front yard and I stood frozen as the British glanced at me and Jenny.

I pressed my finger hard against my silver ring, taking a deep breath to steady myself. And then I saw a flash of red in the cart and I was flying once more.

“Jamie!” I screamed, breath caught in my chest.

I ran over to the back of the cart, seeing a dirty and bloodied man with red hair in the back as I approached. I climbed into the cart, no mind of the solider who was glaring at me from his horse. I fought my way to the front and my heart stopped.

It was him. And he was alive.

A broken, strangled noise came from deep within my chest as I moved to where his head lie among the hay.

His eyes were closed and he was so still I would have thought him dead, but his chest rose and fell in a reassuring manner. He was filthy and covered in blood, his skin stained with sacrifice and endurance. His hair looked more brown then red from the dirt, but I thought he never looked more beautiful.

I continued to cry as I leaned down to kiss to forehead and brush the dirty hair away from his eyes, picking a piece of hay from his curls.

“Jamie, Jamie…love, can you hear me? I’m here, Jamie. I’m right here.”

His eyes fluttered open and if I had been standing, I would have fallen to my knees at the sight of his eyes, filled with despair and the haunting of war.

His breathing hitched as his face twitched up into a small attempt of a smile.

“I kent it woulnda be long, Sassenach. Thank ye, god,” he whispered as his hand tried to reach my face but fell back on the cart with not enough strength to find me.

I picked it up gently, as if he was a small child, and brought it to my cheek and held it there tightly.

He looked so weak and so frail, which finally set off alarms in my head to look for a wound. I gently ran my hands down his bruised body. Gently lifting his shirt to peek under it and to be met with nothing but a pattern of black and blue.

I faintly heard Jenny and Ian talking to the soldiers a few feet away as I continued to search.

Internal bleeding? I thought it could be a possibility and if so, there was nothing I could do. My hands shook as I moved down to search on his blood covered legs. I lightly ran my fingers under his kilt only to be met with sticky, congealed blood.

I held my breath as I carefully peeled the plaid from his thigh and was met with a nasty, bone deep wound in his upper thigh, inches away from the femoral artery.

I gently lowered the kilt and scooted back up to sit by his head, which was pressed against the hay once more. He was barley conscious and I could hardly blame him under the circumstances, the pain must be excruciating.

I brushed his cheek, rough with weeks of no shaving, and brought his head to look at me.

“Jamie, you’re home. You are safe.”

I patted his cheek gingerly, trying to bring him to me. “Jamie, I’m here. I love you and I’m here. It’s over now.”

His eyes rolled slightly, appraising her, blue eyes blinking into awareness. He moved his cheek so his lips rested against her palm.

“Sass…Sassenach? Claire…you…why are you here…you should be…”

Tears formed in his eyes and spilled over onto his cheeks, washing away some of the dirt and pain of the days past.

I sent a silent prayer to god and leaned down an inch away from his eyes, my tears mingling with his.

“They didn’t work, Jamie. The stones didn’t work and I thank god in heaven for making it so,” I whispered through a thick throat.

Jamie started to sob as he came to the realization I was really there and not lost to him. He shook his head slightly, shaking as I smoothed his hair.

“Love…my love. You’re here, you didna leave me,” he cried as he gathered the strength to move his hand to my heart.

“No, Jamie,” I wept, “I will never leave your side again.”

I leaned down to gently kiss his lips, the only part of him that wasn’t bruised. His lips pressed against mine with such little pressure, to weak to move but an inch.

I clutched onto him in that filthy cart for what seemed like an eternity, until someone coughed discreetly behind me. I reluctantly lifted my head from my husband’s chest as I looked at the solider leaning on the cart, the brightness of his scarlet uniform blinding my eyes.

“You’re his wife, I presume?”

I said nothing, simply glared at someone who was originally my fellow soldier now turned enemy.

He cleared his throat and took off his hat.

“Lucky man, he was about to be shot but someone saved him. He has a nasty wound as you can see, but my fellow soldier and I will help bring him into the house.”

I hesitated. I knew how badly it would hurt him to move but the was no other option.

I moved to kiss his brow. “Jamie, were going to move you, love. Alright?”

Jamie mumbled something under his breath and I took that as agreement.

It was a struggle, the two soldiers and one tenant, trying to navigate their way into the house with a large Scotsman in their arms. I hovered almost on top of them, watching Jamie’s face every agonizing step, cursing all the way.

His pain literally hurt me to see. With every grimace, I felt my heart squeeze.

At last, they got Jamie on to the bed where I could tend to him.

“Gooday, mum,” the soldier said, and turned on his heel and marched out the door.

“Good riddance,” I mumbled under my breath.

I sat on the bed as softly as I could beside Jamie, who immediately grabbed for my hand as if to reassure himself that I was real.

He cleared his throat. “The stones, the didna work ye said. I looked after…and ye werena there.”

I brushed his hand with my fingers. “No, I touched them and I went into them and it was even worse then the first time, but when I woke, I was still in this time.”

He closed his eyes in either exhaustion or relief, perhaps both.

“Jamie,” I started softly. “I’ll need to tend to your leg.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and sighed. “I ken that, but before,” he licked his dried lips. “Kiss me once more, Claire.”

I moved over to him, careful not to jostle him and leaned down to meet my lips with his as his hand grazed my belly which held our future.

A kiss that told all the unspoken truths we didn’t have the words to say aloud.I don’t know what I would have done without you. You are the heart of my soul. The breath in my body.

And so we were, two pieces of one divine creation. Ripped and torn with chunks of us missing from past demons, but stitched and sown back together into one imperfectly perfect soul.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for reading and I would love your feedback!


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